Democrats and administration officials agreed that companies across the private sector need to adjust compensation practices to avoid damaging the economy.

Gene Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, said administration guidelines call on all publicly held companies to link compensation to long-term performance, not short-term gains.

"We believe that compensation practices must be better aligned with long-term value and prudent risk management at all firms, and not just for the financial services industry," Sperling said.

The Workforce Fairness Institute, which has lobbied heavily for the defeat of the Employee Free Choice Act to ease organization rules for labor unions, argues labor officials have acted just as poorly as the "greedy corporate executives" the President has blamed for the economic downturn. The groups points to a 2008 Hudson Institute study that suggests unions have short-changed benefits for their rank and file in favor or generous executive compensation packages and to pad the coffers of their political allies, who are mostly Democrats, as evidence.

“On average, the 21 largest unions pension plans had less than 70 percent of the funds that they would need to cover their total obligations, and none were fully funded,” the study said. “Seven were less than 65 percent funded. Yet 23 officer and staff funds from the same unions had 88.2 percent of the funding they would need to pay promise pensions, including seven full funded plans and another 13 with at least 80 percent of the required funds.”

While taking a break from pondering whether we ought to bulldoze cities because Obama thinks it is good, I ran across this interesting article from Bill Maher. It makes some interesting points and I'd like to elaborate on them a bit here for fun. As is often the cause with good comedy, there is a kernel of truth and those kernels are very revealing here in what they say.

Quote:

I'm still a fan, but there's a fine line between being transparent and being overexposed. Every time you turn on the TV, there's Obama. He's getting a puppy! He's eating a cheeseburger with Joe Biden! He's taking the wife to Broadway and Paris -- this is the best season of "The Bachelor" yet!

I get it: You love being on TV. I love my bong, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while. The other day, I caught myself saying to a friend, "Don't tell me if he's fixed the economy yet, I'm Tivo-ing it."

As I noted earlier and as Maher notes here, Obama is everywhere and is the only voice out there for Democrats right now. In addition he is receiving so much coverage and so much of it is on trivial matters that the news debates about plans and action has been completely crowded out for time.

This leads to the real issue on all sides of the political aisle. It is like a ticking time bomb that I bet will go off by the next midterms...

Quote:

I mean, selling the personal part to stay popular, I'm all for it, but you got us already. We like you, we really like you! You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady. But so's Lindsay Lohan. And like Lohan, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something.

I know that's harsh. But when I read about how you sat on the sidelines while bailed-out banks used the money we gave them to hire lobbyists who got Congress to stop homeowners from getting renegotiated loans, or how Congress is already giving up on healthcare reform, or how scientists say it's essential to reduce CO2 by 40% in 10 years, but your own bill calls for 4%, I say, enough with the character development, let's get on with the plot.

Here is where the wheels are going to come off the tracks so to speak. The utopians out there can't wait for Nirvana anymore. They want their messiah to give it to them now.

See what they American people want is a VAT or possible Cap and Trade tax to happen to make our already rising energy costs even more unmanageable. The best way to help the planet is to charge the poor and unemployed a lot more for everything they need to get by in life.

Then to brighten their spirits even more, you tell them that the best way to solve our problems regarding their lost jobs and lost homes is to bulldoze away entire communities.

Finally you call state employees and other groups that buy bonds, greedy speculators, you screw them out of their money, you do the same with foreign investors by destroying the currency, all while bidding down rates on your own bonds by buying them using a printing press, and then demand nothing about this house of cards will come tumbling down due to your charisma.

Maher makes a cause for even more strident action. Republicans are the butt of the jokes which is just fine with me. When you can spend the day pondering the what the carbon tax should be on your bong, you might see some truth, but you've lost the common touch.

Quote:

Obama needs to start putting it on the line in fights against the banks, the energy companies and the healthcare industry. I never thought I'd say this, but he needs to be more like George W. Bush. Bush was all about, "You're with us or against us."

Obama's more like, "You're either with us, or you obviously need to see another picture of this adorable puppy!"

Maher fails to see that people are getting tossed off the job due to the mere mumblings of wealth destroying plans while actually showing picture of puppies, actual action on those plans will destroy the economy very quickly.

Quote:

'm glad that Obama is president, but the "Audacity of Hope" part is over. Right now, I'm hoping for a little more audacity.

Keep hoping Bill. Soon all of us will need that bong to help us forget.

There are a number of economists who strongly object to even the basic idea that government spending is a useful tool during this crisis. For example, 1995 Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas called multiplier estimates from Economy.com "schlock economics"; John Cochrane of the University of Chicago has called government spending stimulus "a fallacy"; Robert Barro of Harvard called one version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) "the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s."

Since we now have another Nobel Laureate on the hook as being against this, perhaps we can move beyond outright dismissals to the heart of the matter.

Quote:

Spending skeptics regard the impact of government spending on private spending very differently, as the Keynesian model was replaced many years ago, at least among research economists; and many of the presumptions of the Keynesian model have changed as well. The central message from new research on fiscal policy is that the impact of government spending depends critically on what the spending is on, and how it is ultimately financed.

For these reasons, there is no simple answer to the question of how spending affects the economy, but what new research does tell us is not supportive of spending stimulus programs. Studies that include the important requirement that higher spending must be ultimately financed with higher tax rates find that government spending expansions do not expand the economy.

In some cases, higher spending can raise GDP for a short period of time if tax increases are delayed, but the greater the delay, the greater the long-run decline in employment and output that ultimately swamps the temporary gain. These findings are summarized in a new paper by Harald Uhlig of the University of Chicago, who writes that "the analysis here may lead one to conclude that the long-term consequences of massive expansions in government stimulus come at substantial costs."

And if public spending is a very close substitute for private spending, there may well not be even temporary gains from higher spending.

The Obama plan was declared to be needed to close the gap that lack of private spending had created. Obama specifically sold it stating that when you go from $13 trillion to $10 trillion government must fill the gap and become the consumer of last resort.

Quote:

The key reason recent studies don't find a Keynesian-level multiplier is because the higher taxes on incomes or expenditures that ultimately accompany higher spending depress economic activity. And the depressing effect of these tax increases is the largest when government spending closely replaces private expenditures. Ironically, the largest temporary gains of higher spending occur when the spending is on items that have little direct value to consumers, such as military spending.

By this criteria the Obama stimulus is basically a gigantic anchor on the economy.

Quote:

The standard approach for judging government spending is cost-benefit analysis, which judges a project to be worthwhile if the costs--including impact on future taxes--are less than the benefits it provides. It may be useful for government to consider accelerating spending on worthwhile programs during a downturn, since the cost of some initiatives, such as construction projects, may indeed be lower.

The "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects that Republicans were willing to endorse and that amounted to about 5% of the entire stimulus, they were closest to providing benefit so Republicans did the responsible thing here in both promoting these projects and in opposing the other 95%.

Quote:

Lee E. Ohanian is a professor of Economics and director of the Ettinger Family Program in Macroeconomic Research at UCLA.

It is always important to note who fellow posters are going to dismiss as "not Paul Krugman" while ignoring the very important points made in this piece.

Jake Tapper and Karen Travers report: In an interview with Bloomberg News Al Hunt today, President Obama says he thinks unemployment will hit 10% this year.

Will unemployment reach 10%? asks Hunt.

Yes, says the president.

Before the end of this year? asks Hunt.

Yes, says the president.

This is masterful politics. It is managing expectations and stating the obvious so you look like you are in control instead of just reacting to the crapfest you have caused.

Quote:

In January, the incoming administration predicted in a white paper study that without a huge stimulus package, unemployment would reach just over 8%, and would be contained at under 8% with a stimulus package.

(When asked about this discrepancy, one of the authors of the study Jared Bernstein, the top economic adviser to Vice President Biden recently said that when we made our initial estimates, that was before we had fourth-quarter results on GDP, which we later found out was contracting at an annual rate of 6 percent, far worse than we expected at that time. The bottom line, Bernstein said, is that without the stimulus the unemployment rate would have been between 1.5 and 2 points higher than it otherwise will be.)

This is always the fun stuff about government. You demand a stimulus, the results are the opposite of what you claim and you pat yourself on the back for having saved the situation from being worse.

Really we should be blaming Obama for not having full employment yet and of course no debt. Since the multiplier effect of the stimulus is more than a dollar for each dollar spent, we should have simply been able to conjure and legislate ourselves to nirvanna by now. Obama is a weak coward for spending so little. Using his 1.5 multiplier, he only needed to demand to spend $20 trillion and the resultant $30 trillion of wealth would have eliminated the national debt. Plus we'd all have health care, and paid off houses, and finally puppies and kittens for everyone too!

Or maybe we could realize there is no magic multiplier for stimulus and that we are stealing future growth from our own economy and enslaving our grandchildren and children with untenable debt.

This is masterful politics. It is managing expectations and stating the obvious so you look like you are in control instead of just reacting to the crapfest you have caused.

This is always the fun stuff about government. You demand a stimulus, the results are the opposite of what you claim and you pat yourself on the back for having saved the situation from being worse.

Really we should be blaming Obama for not having full employment yet and of course no debt. Since the multiplier effect of the stimulus is more than a dollar for each dollar spent, we should have simply been able to conjure and legislate ourselves to nirvanna by now. Obama is a weak coward for spending so little. Using his 1.5 multiplier, he only needed to demand to spend $20 trillion and the resultant $30 trillion of wealth would have eliminated the national debt. Plus we'd all have health care, and paid off houses, and finally puppies and kittens for everyone too!

Or maybe we could realize there is no magic multiplier for stimulus and that we are stealing future growth from our own economy and enslaving our grandchildren and children with untenable debt.

Works for me.

Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale. NOT!

Are you confused by all that has changed since President Barack Obama took office in January? If so, you're not alone. Perhaps, though, this handy guide to Age of Obama "logic" might be of some assistance.

1. The Budget. Wanting to cut $17 billion from the budget, as President Obama has promised, is proof of financial responsibility. Borrowing $1.84 trillion this year for new programs is "stimulus." The old phrase "out-of-control spending" is inoperative.

2. Unemployment. The number of jobs theoretically saved, or created, by new government policies - not the actual percentage of Americans out of work, or the total number of jobs lost - is now the far better indicator of unemployment.

3. The Private Sector. Nationalizing much of the auto and financial industries, while regulating executive compensation, is an indication of our new government's repeatedly stated reluctance to interfere in the private sector.

4. Race and Gender. Not what is said but who says it and about whom reveals racism and sexism. For example, an Hispanic female judge isn't being offensive if she states that Latinas are inherently better judges than white males.

5. Random violence. Some assassinations represent larger American pathologies, but others do not. When a crazed lone gunman murders someone outside the Holocaust Museum or shoots an abortion doctor, we should worry about growing right-wing and Christian extremism. But when an African-American Muslim convert brags about his murder of a military recruitment officer or an Islamic group plots to kill Jews and blow up a military jet, these are largely isolated incidents without larger relevance.

6. Terrorism. Acts of terror disappeared about six months ago. Thankfully, we live now in an age where there will be - in the new vocabulary of the Obama administration - only occasional "overseas contingency operations" in which we may be forced to hold a few "detainees." At the same time, ongoing military tribunals, renditions, wiretaps, phone intercepts and predator-drone assassinations are no longer threats to the Constitution. And just saying you're going to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay is proof that it is almost closed.

7. Iraq. The once-despised Iraq war thankfully ended around Jan. 20, 2009, and has now transformed into a noble experiment that is fanning winds of change throughout the Middle East. There will be no need for any more Hollywood cinema exposés of American wartime crimes in Iraq with titles like "Rendition," "Redacted," "Lions for Lambs" and "Stop-Loss."

8. The West. Western values and history aren't apparently that special or unique. As President Obama told the world during his recent speech in Cairo, the Renaissance and Enlightenment were, in fact, fueled by a brilliant Islamic culture, responsible for landmark discoveries in mathematics, science and medicine. Slavery in America ended without violence. Mistreatment of women and religious intolerance in the Middle East have comparable parallels in America.

9. Media. The media are disinterested and professional observers of the present administration. When television anchormen and senior magazine editors bow to the president, proclaim him a god or feel tingling in the legs when he speaks, it is quite normal.

10. George W. Bush. Former President Bush did all sorts of bad things to the United States that only now we are learning will take at least eight years to sort out. "Bush did it" for the next decade will continue to explain the growing unemployment rate, the most recent deficit, the new round of tensions with Iran and North Korea, and the growing global unrest from the Middle East to South America.

Once we remember and accept the logic of the above, then almost everything about this Age of Obama begins to make perfect sense.

Seems like more and more people are realizing how terrible and Orwellian our world has become. The propaganda spread by the administration breaks with reality and the the defenders of it make no sense. Finally the motivations are revealed as purely political when networks like ABC run Obama infomercials that allow no dissent, express no opposing viewpoints and they won't even allow advertising on that might detract from the message.

Seems like more and more people are realizing how terrible and Orwellian our world has become. The propaganda spread by the administration breaks with reality and the the defenders of it make no sense. Finally the motivations are revealed as purely political when networks like ABC run Obama infomercials that allow no dissent, express no opposing viewpoints and they won't even allow advertising on that might detract from the message.

One person != more and more people

ABC != how terrible and Orwellian our world has become

Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale. NOT!

The basic point is that the recession of 2001 wasn't a typical postwar slump, brought on when an inflation-fighting Fed raises interest rates and easily ended by a snapback in housing and consumer spending when the Fed brings rates back down again. This was a prewar-style recession, a morning after brought on by irrational exuberance. To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.

Now what do we need to replace the Nasdaq and Housing Bubble..... a Government Bubble.

We should never have to hear about Krugman again.... ever.

BTW, let's see what he had to say about giving people a tax cut back then...

Quote:

Bear in mind also that government officials have a stake in accentuating the positive. The administration needs a recovery because, with deficits exploding, the only way it can justify that tax cut is by pretending that it was just what the economy needed. Mr. Greenspan needs one to avoid awkward questions about his own role in creating the stock market bubble.

Anyone want to find a similar condemnation for Obama and his tax cut for 95% of the people with the deficit exploding in new and unprecidented ways? Hell anyone want to even find a condemnation about Obama exploding the deficit at all by Krugman?

My guess is likely never. The damage to institutions from the Democrats this time will be too great for anyone to trust them again no matter what party is in power.

That of course presumes there would be anything worth saving in the first place.

A few points...

The bailout of AIG has now cost us double what we spent on New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina. Both are small compared to all the bailouts overall.

The rule of law is gone. Contracts are temporary things that are easily broken by the government on the whims of politicians. Secured bond holder really means greedy speculator who shouldn't be repaid or even considered on proper legal terms. Rule of law really means, I'm better than you because of my background unless I'm not better than you in which case it is your fault because I am disadvantaged.

Pax Americana is still here and is thriving better than ever. We are sending more troops to more places and of course the media will help spin how out of Iraq really didn't mean come home, just be redeployed abroad to places that evoke bettery imagery.

The media has just completely given up reporting news because they would rather worship their messiah. It's June and Obama still isn't funny in any fashion. The media is dying and spinning their own death. Newsweek is giving up the pretense of objectivity, slanting hard left, raising their price and having Stephen Colbert as a guest editor (because who can tell between clown and editor in the media in this age.) Others are following suit and everyone is racing to the bottom of being bankrupt first. Profits don't matter when you have the right intentions about

Speaking of bankrupt the United States is and even the president admits we've run out of money even though we own the printing presses. The same financial pages that whisper about what everyone knows 8-12 months before it becomes the statistics reveal the news are all whispering the same thing. The debt path Obama has put us on is unsustainable and we need a dollar replacement because the U.S. is going to default on its debt with the printing press. Everyone knows it and all are standing around knowing the ship is sinking but not sure of how to bolt to the lifeboats without creating a mad mob.

Don't worry though. HuffPo will point out who Chris Matthews "blasted" today and also who John Stewart "slammed" because the tone and intention are much more important than the facts and details. Just ask our newest Supreme Court nominee about that. In the end Obama will go "talk" to everyone about the fact that we make nothing, borrow everything and how utopia should come about because we want it to happen.

Who would invest in a country that cannot honor debts, rule or law or have news organizations that cannot report the news? It is clearly a country that prefers delusions to reality. No one should invest in that unless they want to lose their return as many are already doing.

Me, I'm working on my garden and making sure my my rentals are filled with good people, enjoying the outdoors and of course my kids. Even in Future United States, or California as we prefer to call it, I'm doing just fine. Good principles work even in the down times. I am a bit sad that the country my kids grow up in though will be a shell of what it could be and that so much harm will come to it due to delusional ideas.

The entire world, thanks GW Bush and his administration for this mess. Most of countries of the world face the crisis and increase the huge internal debt to avoid a total collapse of the economy. And who will pay ?
Me, us for sure.

The entire world, thanks GW Bush and his administration for this mess. Most of countries of the world face the crisis and increase the huge internal debt to avoid a total collapse of the economy. And who will pay ?
Me, us for sure.

I'll be more than willing to entertain how Bush caused all the problems Europe has.

I'll be more than willing to entertain how Bush caused all the problems Europe has.

The financial crisis born in USA according to every economist. It was related to the subprimes

Note that I did not say that all the problems europe has come from Bush. It would be totally stupid.
I did not say that every decision of Obama is good in my agenda. For example raising tax for the rich is more symbolic than efficient in my point of vue. But the problem is that all economy of the world are obliged to increase the debt to avoid deflation.
Of course we will obliged to paid later. That's life.

My point is that Obama did not generated this crisis. Like every other governement of the world he is obliged to face it, and inject billions of dollars. If he did not inject this money (and it's also the case for most countries) there will be a major collapse of the economy.

The financial crisis born in USA according to every economist. It was related to the subprimes

Note that I did not say that all the problems europe has come from Bush. It would be totally stupid.
I did not say that every decision of Obama is good in my agenda. For example raising tax for the rich is more symbolic than efficient in my point of vue. But the problem is that all economy of the world are obliged to increase the debt to avoid deflation.
Of course we will obliged to paid later. That's life.

My point is that Obama did not generated this crisis. Like every other governement of the world he is obliged to face it, and inject billions of dollars. If he did not inject this money (and it's also the case for most countries) there will be a major collapse of the economy.

Does it make me happy : not at all. I will have to pay later

I'd say that is a nice sound bite explanation that would fit nicely in the 30 seconds the pundit has to fill to sound right this week when they were making an entirely different case a month earlier.

The financial crisis is based around fiat money, entitlements and government intrusion into the economy which causes misallocation of resources within that economy. Europe suffers from the same problems. They become a little easier to hide when you run account surpluses with the U.S. but become well exposed (and then some) if the U.S. decides to monetize away the problem.

There are several countries within the EU that have had property bubbles and suffered from the same easy credit problems. UK, Ireland and Spain all easily come mind.

You know when I suggest the only silver bullet that will solve boomer retirement problems is a literal silver bullet, some try to label it hate, but in reality, I'm just ahead of the curve.

Obama wants to take quality of life out of the medical equation and make it just about improving health.

Quote:

Obama said during the ABC Special on Wednesday night that a way to save healthcare costs is to abandon the sort of care that evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve the patients health. He went on to say that he had personal familiarity with such a situation when his grandmother broke her hip after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Obama offered a question on the efficacy of further care for his grandmother saying, and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?

THE PRESIDENT: I dont know how much that hip replacement cost. I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because shes my grandmother. Whether, sort of in the aggregate, society making those decisions to give my grandmother, or everybody elses aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when theyre terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult question. If somebody told me that my grandmother couldnt have a hip replacement and she had to lie there in misery in the waning days of her life that would be pretty upsetting.

And its going to be hard for people who dont have the option of paying for it.

THE PRESIDENT: So thats where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues. But thats also a huge driver of cost, right?

I mean, the chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out here.

So how do you how do we deal with it?

THE PRESIDENT: ...you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance. Its not determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance. And thats part of what I suspect youll see emerging out of the various health care conversations that are taking place on the Hill right now.

So wonderful boomers, as you head into your retirement years and wonder about those bodies that are aching a bit more, getting a bit looser and wrinkled of the skin and when those joints are starting to stiffen and those arteries harden don't worry too much about it.

President Obama and his independent entity will be there to determine your collective fate. I guess you didn't know that part of being your brother's keeper is also to be the brother's grim reaper.

So wonderful boomers, as you head into your retirement years and wonder about those bodies that are aching a bit more, getting a bit looser and wrinkled of the skin and when those joints are starting to stiffen and those arteries harden don't worry too much about it.

President Obama and his independent entity will be there to determine your collective fate. I guess you didn't know that part of being your brother's keeper is also to be the brother's grim reaper.

Works for me.

Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale. NOT!

Have you ever, for one moment, considered the possibility that what Obama is doing is NOT the best possible solution?

While countries around the world are LOWERING taxes to stimulate business and spending, Obama wants to raise taxes on business, and will eventually have to raise taxes on the middle class to pay for his massive spending. Not to mention the run-away inflation that will ensue because of all the money that is being printed out of thin air.

Seriously, just look beyond Obama's cult of personality for a moment and try to see why so many people are against what he is doing instead of dismissing them because you don't like what you hear.

I'm advocating doing nothing! The Fed needs to put put down like a rabid dog and the Treasury needs to quit flooding financial markets. Let business find it's own level for recovery. It will go much quicker and ultimately cost the country trillions of $ less.

Thank goodness no one is discussing you know.. rationing health care or anything like that. Don't worry, your wallet or your life is taking on an entirely new meaning.

Rationing health care?
Ok so if the current system is so amazing after 7.3 (3.3) years of a new health care system it will revert to the way it is now.
So if you are under 40 you will never know that there was a change.
If you are over 50 without insurance you'll get "rationed" health care instead of none.
Bummer...

Wanna bet I can find plenty of articles like that for Sandford and the GOP?

Do you really think a bribery conviction of the councilman wife of a moderately prominent congressman is ever going to generate more news than the disappearing act / sex scandal by a prominent governor who had already been in the news frequently in re: the stimulus and mentioned as a potential presidential candidate would, no matter the (D) or (R) next to the name?

Also, I think you're forgetting that a whole host of major news outlets took "hiking the Appalachian trail" utterly at face value:

No location was specified, and no one seemed to have seen the governor making preparations for the trip. The next morning, Sanford's office issued yet another statement saying Sanford had called the office, that he was "taken aback" by the fuss, and would be back at work Wednesday. But still no specifics on where exactly he was.

It's fair to say you didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to think there might be something fishy going on here... But some mainstream outlets didn't quite see things that way.

Quote:

Later that night, after we'd been fed the Appalachian Trail line by Sanford's office, Politico's Ben Smith headlined his post "Found." (Remember, no one, not even Sanford's office, was claiming to have actually seen the guv since Thursday. They just said he'd called in.)

Quote:

Smith was hardly the only one to buy the Appalachian Trail line. On The Today Show Tuesday morning, NBC's Mike Viqueira crowed: "It's a mystery solved!"

Quote:

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza -- in a Tuesday morning post hilariously headlined "Sanford Returns!" -- reported that Sanford "will return to the state tomorrow after spending the last five days hiking the Appalachian Trail, according to a statement released by his office this morning."

Quote:

And the Wall Street Journal headlined its post: "Once Lost, Gov. Sanford Is Now Found," and wrote a lede similar to Cillizza's.

In fact, the first I ever heard of the Sanford story was an AP story on the front page of Yahoo! the declared Sanford "found."

Also, don't you think that might be a factor in the level of coverage for Sanford as well? Blatantly untrue statements tend to generate attention.

See how easy it is to play this little tit for tat game? It can't be won.

Couldn't the difference in coverage be a result of the fact that one person is a state governor and the other is a member of a city council?

There are only 50 governors in the nation but literally hundreds of thousands of city council members. It seems appropriate that the story about a governor gets more national coverage.

As we so enjoyed being reminded last election, it is the size of what is being discussed that determines the suitability. Detroit serves over a million people which makes it bigger than Alaska, bigger than Delaware which VP Biden served as a Senator for so long. The population of Detroit is larger than that wonderful state Howard Dean served called Vermont.

What a convenient double-standard. We care about Wasilla in the fall but who gives a crap about Detroit in the spring.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flounder

Do you really think a bribery conviction of the councilman wife of a moderately prominent congressman is ever going to generate more news than the disappearing act / sex scandal by a prominent governor who had already been in the news frequently in re: the stimulus and mentioned as a potential presidential candidate would, no matter the (D) or (R) next to the name?

Also, I think you're forgetting that a whole host of major news outlets took "hiking the Appalachian trail" utterly at face value:

In fact, the first I ever heard of the Sanford story was an AP story on the front page of Yahoo! the declared Sanford "found."

Also, don't you think that might be a factor in the level of coverage for Sanford as well? Blatantly untrue statements tend to generate attention.

See how easy it is to play this little tit for tat game? It can't be won.

They took it at face value because they took the gambit that they had an obligation to look for a guy that no one was upset that was missing. (Except for some Democratic operatives who wanted to get the story out there.)

Sort of like how claiming Palin's own child wasn't hers forced the disclosure about her daughter.

They took it at face value because they took the gambit that they had an obligation to look for a guy that no one was upset that was missing.

I really have no clue what that sentence it supposed to be saying. It may as well have been written in a foreign language.

Quote:

You prove the point rather than refute it.

What am I supposed to be proving now?

Quote:

Sort of like how claiming Palin's own child wasn't hers forced the disclosure about her daughter.

But I will ask you to prove that. Exactly what major news outlets where claiming Palin's own child wasn't hers? As I recall, it was some diary on Kos picked up by a few left-wing blogs, plus Andrew Sullivan's odd fascination with the topic.

It didn't appear in the MSM until a few days later when the Palin camp thought they could score some points, and subsequently appeared on the major news outlets to whine about how awful the media was to them by accusing her of not being the mother of her own child.